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internet

Too many line options to choose from?

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

Nowadays we’re fortunate (depending on our budgets of course) to have internet access at home. We can quickly Google a recipe instead of scurrying to find the right cookbook or piece of paper you wrote the recipe down on somewhere. Or quickly look up the name of that actor whose name is on the tip of your tongue and you’re convinced your husband has the wrong one.

Unfortunately being spoilt for choice also brings more confusion at times. On top of having to choose the right service provider, you can also choose your line speed.  iAfrica  explained it for us in simple terms.

SOURCE: www.iafrica.com

Broadband or Big Mac?

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Broadband prices plummeted over the last decade, but the same cannot be said for many other products. Rudolph Muller from www.mybroadband.co.za investigated and stumbled upon a few interesting numbers.

ADSL and mobile data prices have plunged over the last decade. The total cost of an ADSL service dropped by over 50% since it was launched in 2002 while mobile data costs decreased by 96% over the last 10 years.

In 2002 a basic 512 Kbps ADSL service cost residential customers R966.72 per month (R67.72 for analogue line rental, R680 for ADSL access and R219 for a 3GB data bundle). In comparison, the price for a 384kbps connection with 5GB of data is now priced at R358.97 (R219.00 + R139.97).

Even more significant price cuts are visible in the mobile data market. In 2002 a 10MB data bundle from Vodacom cost R200 (hence R20 per MB). Today users can buy a 1GB data bundle from the same company for R99 (10c per MB).

Broadband prices have seen price cuts of between 50% and 95% over the last decade. These price reductions were partly fuelled by lower international bandwidth prices made possible by SEACOM.

When compared with products such as petrol and food, broadband stands out as having bucked the trend of price increases.

The following table provides an overview of the price changes of a few products over the last 10 years.

Service 2002 2012 Change

Telkom ADSL

Consumer ADSL access (512kbps/1Mbps) R680 R289 -58%
Business ADSL access (512kbps/1Mbps) R800 R289 -64%
3GB of blended ADSL data R219 R59.4 -73%
Analogue line rental R68 R140 107%

Vodacom mobile data

Out of bundle R45 R2 -96%
MyMeg 10 R200 R9 -96%

MultiChoice pay-TV

DStv premium R349 R590 69%

Fuel

Petrol R4.26 R11.77 176%

Big Mac

McDonald’s Big Mac burger R9.00 R20.95 133%

Just browsing

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Way back when the internet was still in it’s baby shoes, the only options for web browsers were Internet Explorer and Netscape. Thankfully things have changed and today you can choose a web browser according to your own needs – whatever they might be. We made some notes so you can have more time to surf the net.

Nowadays most browsers are more than adequate. The leaders in the race, Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, are all packed with handy functionalities and on par with new developments. In the end it all depends on what you prefer.

The most important requirement is probably speed and here it seems as if Google Chrome is taking the lead. With “Chrome Instant” you see the pages you are looking for even before you’ve finished typing the address or title. An application that thinks ahead – literally! Chrome is  the only browser with a built-in Flash-player and pdf reader. It also handles HTML5 the best of all browsers and with it’s new hardware acelaration it’s increasingly becoming the popular choice.

However Google Chrome is not the only fast browser. Internet Explorer 9 gave Microsoft’s fading browser a much needed need boost, with JavaScript speed comparable to Chrome, and even started its own performance improving trend—graphics hardware acceleration. IE9’s Javascript is comparable with Chrome and maybe IE9’s greatest advantages is it’s integration with Windows 7. You can also permanently “pin” websites on your taskbar – a handy extra if you don’t like using bookmarks. Just remember you need at least Windows 7 or Vista to run Internet Explorer 9.

Do you want to synchronise all your bookmarks, settings and internet history seamlessly? Them Firefox is for you. It can even sync with it’s own mobile Android version. Firefox also has the most innovative way of organising  a lot of tabs with it’s panorama grouping function. Firefox’s startup speed, memory usage and security has improved quite a bit over time and can keep up with any of the other browsers.

If you want to have a look at the detailed statistics of each browser’s performance,  read more here.

SOURCE: www.lifehacker.com

Need for speed?

Friday, May 25th, 2012

We always need more time and want to do everything faster. To find something fast on the internet is just one way to save time.

Here are a few fast ways to make sure you get the most out of your browser’s functionality.

1. Use a fast browser

Fairly obvious isn’t it? In a previous article we looked at the various browsers and their performance. By now you know that all browsers are faster than others and Google Chrome is currently winning the race when it comes to speed.

2. Disable Flash

Flash websites are all over the web and extremely popular.  Although they look impressive, they also slow down your browsing experience considerably. Rather turn off Flash by default and reactivate it when you really want to see the Flash animations. Some browsers require an add-on to block Flash. For Chrome, you need the extension Flashblock. There’s also a Flashblock extension for Firefox. Internet Explorer has a built-in tool you can access by clicking Tools | Manage Add-ons.

3. Get rid of all those toolbars

More  toolbars, slower speed. As simple as that. And do you really need all those toolbars? Some toolbars  take up computer memory while others are eating away on your bandwidth and sending and receiving data in the background. (and you thought they were just sitting there doing nothing!)

4.  Use tabs, not windows

Too many tabs can cause problems, but they’re very handy when it comes to browsing efficiency. How do tabs speed up your experience? The first is all about organization. With multiple tabs in a single window, it becomes quite a bit faster to locate the page you need to work on. You don’t have to maximize a window, discover that it’s not the right one, minimize it, maximize a new window… until you find the correct one. A single window open with multiple tabs is far easier to search. This is not the only way tabs can help you. Browsers like Chrome treat each tab as an individual process (instead of a child process of a parent). So when a Web site causes a tab to crash, you can close that one tab and not lose all the other tabs. This behavior is not a standard at the moment, so you’ll need to switch over to the Chrome browser to take advantage of it.

SOURCE: http://www.techrepublic.com/


What To Do When The Internet Is Down?

Friday, May 11th, 2012

SOURCE: http://www.makeuseof.com

 

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